


Yoga

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: The internet becomes Nathan’s yoga instructor. (It will probably get fired soon.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally Posted: Oct 2, 2010 on LiveJournal  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Yoga was fucking brutal, Nathan had decided. He’d been bored, googling random shit and getting sucked into a seemingly bottomless pit of YouTube videos, when some stuff about yoga had popped up. One click and he’d ended up watching a bunch of videos about that. 

It wasn’t the videos themselves. Most of them had really, really stupid background music, so he’d hit the mute button on his laptop. That meant he didn’t hear the instructions either, but how hard could it fucking be? With vague ideas about making yoga more metal starting to percolate in his brain he’d put on some better music in the background, and kicked some of the bottles and crap on his bedroom floor around until there was a clear enough space to try some of the poses he’d seen. 

Then he’d ended up stuck in this backward bend thing, unable to move much without worrying he’d fall painfully on his ass. Even while he was carefully doing nothing, though, it kind of made his back hurt. His arms and legs were starting to shake with effort, and his head was pounding on account of being upside down and all the blood rushing into it. The combination of all those physical discomforts and the fear of falling was staring to make him feel like he wanted to die. That’s when he decided that yoga was brutal. 

When someone walked in and turned the music down, Nathan knew it was Charles. It had to be. Pickles would have just started laughing his ass off; Murderface would have yelled something about having a crotch pointed at him; Toki’s excited voice tended to be pitched high enough to cut through just about anything, music or not; Skwisgaar probably wouldn’t have bothered, just left; and any of the servants would have asked for permission before doing anything as brazen as messing with his personal sound system. Charles was the only guy in Mordhaus important enough to do shit like that in the name of getting work done. 

It was a lot like the time Charles had walked in on a drunken game of Twister, only a lot more embarrassing. There wasn’t even the excuse of alcohol to hide behind. (Well… not a _lot_ of alcohol. Some.) And as hard as Nathan was trying to pretend that bending over backwards until your hands touched the floor and then staying that way indefinitely was a perfectly normal thing to do, he was pretty sure he wasn’t pulling it off very well. For one thing, according to the tabloids he should not under any circumstances do anything to make his shirt ride up and show off his stupid fat stomach… This definitely broke that rule.

“Uh... hi.”

“Hello, Nathan,” Charles replied blandly from the door. Probably from the door. Near it, ish? Nathan wasn’t exactly in the best position to see him. “Doing all right there?”

“Yeah.” Nathan breathed a mental sigh of relief. Maybe the manager hadn’t noticed what he was doing. After all, sometimes Charles didn’t listen to what he said, either. Or... was that the other way around? Fuck, there was too much blood in his head to think. 

“Okay then. Oh, and I hope you haven’t forgotten about the press conference later today.”

“Ugh, that... thing.” Oh god his arms were shaking so bad that he was starting to worry he’d fall with an audience. Just his manager, who was probably to boring to tell anyone, but still. 

“Yes. You have about five hours. What you’ll need to say is already typed up and I’ve put it right here, on the, ah, corner of your bed. If you lose it, I have extra copies.”

Nathan nodded, though he wished he hadn’t almost instantly because it just drew more attention to the fact that his head was upside down. Beneath him, his hair swayed back and forth.

Charles seemed to accept this as a response, but didn’t leave the room. Instead, he walked until he was standing in Nathan’s line of sight. Then he turned his back on him entirely. What surprised Nathan the most was the speed and grace with which he sank into the position, and second most how well he had judged the distance between where their faces would be. 

With his short hair, Charles looked just about the same upside-down as he did right side up. The only difference was that his glasses slid a tiny bit higher on his nose. He kissed Nathan. 

It was only for a few seconds, and then he popped back up as easy as breathing and left with a calm, “Don’t forget about that press conference. It’s important.”

“What the fuck just... Hey, wait!” Nathan called, and fell down in exactly the way he’d been trying to avoid for the past however the fuck long. It hurt about as much as he’d expected it would and then some. “Fuck, ow...”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan tries yoga again, but this time with a proper instructor.

“Am I doing it right  _now_?” Nathan asked, for the third time. He was starting to get impatient, not least because his arms and legs were getting tired. 

“Almost,” Charles replied patiently, “you need to keep your spine arched.” He rested a hand on Nathan’s lower back, pressing up gently from beneath. 

The big man grumbled but allowed the adjustment, struggling to hold the slightly different position. “Y’know, when I said I wanted you to show me how you did this fucking thing so easy, this is not what I had in mind.”

“Yes, well.” The other man’s hand was still resting against the back of his t-shirt, warm through the cloth. “I did warn you that it would take a while to build up your front-body core first.”

“If you start talking about lumbar and safety shit again, so help me  _god_ ,” Nathan grunted, and arched a little higher as he inhaled just to prove that he could. 

Charles gave a small chuckle at that. “Good,” he observed, stepping back to observe. “Now come down from the wheel pose on the exhale and slowly move into a supine one-leg stretch, to neutralize the spine— No, Nathan, don’t try to hug your knees to your chest, I don’t care if it’s what your muscles want, it’s not good for your back. You remember what happened last time?”

The response was a long drawn out sigh, followed by a mumbled, “Yeah yeah, whatever,” as Nathan did as he was told. 

“Thank you. And… the other leg now… Okay, now just relax into the corpse pose. Eyes closed.”

Nathan relaxed on the padded mat. As Charles had promised, the cycle of exercises really had grown easier over time and he was only kind of sweaty. His muscles ached a little but it was a sensation he’d grown used to over the past few months, even enjoyed. 

It was nice to know, too, that Charles had specifically put aside time in his busy schedule for these early morning (well, eleven am, but close enough as far as Nathan was concerned) sessions. No one else in the band got special one-on-one time with the CFO, that was for sure, and Nathan was pretty damn smug about that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this is going anywhere. If it is, because Charles did kiss him at the end of the first chapter, I guess they're in kind of a holding pattern while they figure out how to navigate each other's company now. 
> 
> Plus, you know, Nathan tends not to think about these things very hard, so he's mostly just focusing on figuring out _how_ Charles got into that position to kiss him. Like maybe that would unlock some secret explanation that makes all things clear.


End file.
